


On a Day

by fenerkulesi



Category: Baten Kaitos
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-13
Updated: 2014-01-13
Packaged: 2018-01-08 16:00:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,177
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1134665
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fenerkulesi/pseuds/fenerkulesi
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>She's met a few Guardian Spirits, ones who return with stories bigger than all the skies that ever hung over the forest, filled with things far beyond her knowing. She never grows tired of hearing them.</p>
            </blockquote>





	On a Day

Nekton is not a happy place.  
  
The Shrine of Spirits, Mira's people call it. The spirits themselves just call it the forest. There's no need for them to give it a name. It stays when the sky changes, that is all. The monsters stay, the gloom stays. The spiritlights are too dim to keep them back. But deep in the heart of the forest it's a little brighter, and the monsters are a little less. They can't hurt her, but they do keep most people from coming in. They have legends about the power of the spirits, but not even the rumored reward is enough to spark bravery. Between the monsters and the chance of being caught there in a dimension shift? No. Most people only come there to die.  
  
Nekton is a lonely place.  
  
Sometimes, though, it's a little easier. Small children come from the nearby villages. Too young to care about the dimension shift, hoping they'll see a monster, they play, and shout to the air asking them to be Guardian Spirits. The spirits keep the monsters away, and make the trees stir a little when they ask. She likes to play with them, drawing down close and rustling their hair as she flows behind them. They try to catch her, but even if they could she's always just a little too fast. She never really wanted, doesn't really want to be a Guardian Spirit.  
  
She's met a few, ones who return with stories bigger than all the skies that ever hung over the forest, filled with things far beyond her knowing. She never grows tired of hearing them. Some of them tell of adventure, of majesty, of people and places they had looked on in wonder. Others tell of destruction, of revenge, of people and places they had turned to ash. All of them had led their otherworldly partners to power, to glory, to victory.  
  
And then there are the ones that didn't get an ending, whose stories were over before the dreams could be realized.  
  
Quietly they sit, in the most remote parts of the forest. There's a certain heaviness about them, though she doesn't know what. They’re never the same when they come back. The others who had been Guardian Spirits try to console them but words are wind, and theirs are a light breeze against a mountain.  
  
She doesn’t go near them. Like all the others that have never been Guardian Spirits, she doesn’t like the uneasy feeling she gets when she does.  
  
Spirits in the forest come and go as the sky changes. Some choose to be Guardian Spirits. They always return when their otherworldly partners' story is over, or when it cannot go on. Others fall in love with a world under a rarely-seen sky. They never return. Still others are drawn from other worlds to this, a place full of their own kind, and stay. She cannot remember a time when she did not live in the forest. Maybe she always did. Her wanderlust is satiated by the stories she hears. She does not need to see to know.  
  
She shies away when the dying come. If she can help them, she will bond with them. She doesn't want to bond with them. She'd rather hear the stories than create one of her own. Selfish, perhaps, but there is always one of her kind that will take her place. Almost always they become Guardian Spirits. Rarely they cannot. The dying rejects the offer, and expires on the forest floor. They can all feel it; they all mourn the death, and nobody blames the spirit.  
  
When they are accepted, it always starts off the same way. The dying will enter the forest, never calm, never upright, always in so much pain. Sometimes they go very far in. Sometimes they do not. The spirit calls out to them, and offers them their aid. The dying accepts, and they bond and leave the forest together. When asked what the bonding is like they have different answers. Some say lightning, some say calmly flowing water, some say wind that breaks the trees. None of them ever describe it exactly like the others.  
  
People are always coming and going into the forest, but for a while now there's been nothing. It doesn't bother her. She just lets herself go different places than she normally would. She flows by herself, dangerously near the gate, soaring through the higher branches and making the spiritlights flicker and flicker. She doesn't notice the flower petals that get carried away with her, gently drifting as if on their own breeze.  
  
A man staggers into the forest and lays down, a position she's seen time and again. It always means the same thing. She looks around, but she's the only one there. _Are you all right?_ Of course he's not; he wouldn't be here if he was, but in her panic, she doesn't know what else to say. He answers her, but his voice sounds vague, like he's talking underwater. Is that how it always is? _Don't die!_ Does she sound the same to him? But no, it doesn't matter, she can hear him much clearer when he answers her this time.  
  
He asks her her name. Bemused, she's never really thought about it before. _Daimon_ , she says, after taking a few seconds. It's not really a name, more simply what she is, but. She likes it.  
  
She has a responsibility now, doesn't she, an offer to make. Hesitant, nervous, she doesn't bond with him right away. Instead as she weaves through the branches above him she asks his story. He tells of experiments, of research, of people and places he had loved and loves still. It awakens something within her, a sigh, a long-forgotten memory. She knows of what he speaks, and she knows how to turn it into that which can shake the earth and make the stars tremble. Can she lead him to power, to glory, to victory? She doesn't know, she tells him. All she can do is her best.  
  
He tells her not to worry. Her best will be more than enough. He's sure of it. That's it, then, and it's time for her to swallow her inhibitions. Not even at her fastest is her rush anything more than a whisper, and she barely feels herself bond. She can feel it from him, too, a spark of something fiery that she can't identify. It's warm, so warm. Images flood her. Is she sending her own back? They can make sense of it later, together. They will have plenty of time.  
  
With a new resolve, he heads toward the gates of the forest. She of course goes with him and – it hits her. This is why the others chose to be Guardian Spirits, isn't it. To help someone who needed them, that was all. It had drawn her in cleanly, and now she understands. At least, she thinks she does. She laughs. He asks her why. She answers him:  
  
 _I wonder how my story goes._


End file.
